1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a charging apparatus for driverless transporting vehicle adapted to automatically be driven along optical or magnetic guide tape installed on floor.
2. Prior Art
According to the conventinally known driverless transporting vehicles, they have a battery and wheels driven by a motor and automatically run along a guide tape. When volume of charged electricity of the battery lowers after an automatic long running of the vehicle, the battery must be taken off from the vehicle, battery is connected to a charging apparatus to charge it, and the battery is mounted on the vehicle after charging is over. It is noted that such working above has been done with hands raising a cost of operation of the conventional driverless transporting vehicles.
Comparing to such known driverless transporting vehicles, there are other conventional vehicles respectively provided with an automatic charging apparatus enabling to charge the battery while it is on the vehicle without taking off it from the vehicle. The automatic charging apparatus (FIG. 17) has a power unit A connected to commercial power source, electrode assembly B connected to the power unit A and slidable along a predetermined direction, a motor C for sliding the electrode assembly B, electrode unit F mounted on a front end of the electrode assembly B and enabled to contact with charging terminal E of the driverless vehicle D, and a spring G placed between the electrode unit F and electrode assembly B for protruding outside the electrode unit F. When the vehicle having low electricity of the battery automatically stops at a place of the charging apparatus, the motor C rotates to slide the electrode assembly B toward the vehicle, electrode unit F contacts elastically to the terminal E with the resilient spring G, and the battery is automatically charged.
According to a problem of the conventional automatic charging apparatus, it is necessary to manually remove dirt and carbon dust attached on the electrode unit F or terminal E. That is, the electrode unit F is simply kept in being pressed onto the terminal E, so that when dirt and carbon dust are attached or adhered once to surfaces of the electrode F and terminal E, it is very difficult to remove dirt and dust or clarify the electrode F and terminal E.
Accordingly, it is the purpose of the present invention to provide a charging apparatus for diverless transporting vehicles in which apparatus when electrode unit comes in contact with charging terminal, these unit and terminal mutually rub with each other to clarify them, so that dirt and carbon dust are restricted from attaching to them or removed from them.